Bonsai of Thoughts: Thirty-Seven

1. Those who have given me sorrow in this life—
how can I forget such friends?
I am, after all, a man made happy by grief!

2. The misfortune I believe in
is not my own.
What misfortune can befall one who has no fortune at all?

3. When I think of this entire life,
how many people I wish to keep close—
the very ones who won't let me live in this moment!

4. What was never mine, is not mine today,
yet somehow I have broken it!
If what I've broken could be paid for with money thrown,
would I have broken it, even by mistake!

5. When a person falls in love,
between the two,
one keeps burning,
the other refuses to put themselves out!

6. What comes of trading sorrows with everyone?
People then think even the sorrowful are merchants!

7. If you never lose me,
or if I never lose you,
what would there be left to regret!
Love without regret
is more pretense than love.

8. Never forget God;
if you ever do, you'll forget how to be happy too.

9. Dry all the tears from your eyes,
or you'll find yourself shedding them
before the very one to whom your tears are worthless.

10. The eye that burns at seeing holes in another's clothes
somehow overlooks its own naked body!

11. Silence keeps everything safe—
that virtue which would stir envy in all hearts;
that fault which would kindle anger in all hearts!

Opening one's lips... whatever peace is gained, twice as much flees.

12. Bowing to whose sight did you dive into memory today?
To pay whose price did you mortgage life and lose happiness today?

13. Ever since meeting you, I drink a cup of poison daily.
I store venom in my chest so you might find me bearable!

14. What the lips concealed,
the eyes revealed!

15. The light that raises a thousand hands in prayer when it dies—
no one made the slightest effort to keep that light burning.

16. If you lack the strength to stop the ocean,
why did you write my name in sand?

17. Not all poetry can swallow pain.
Some pain swallows the poet himself!

18. Clouds have gathered in these two eyes.
How much longer must I live holding back the rain?

19. Don't come to introduce rain
to one who brings down rain himself.

20. One day you will need me—
the day when even poison will be of no use!